


Bad Blood

by CaptainGrammar



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Lee Clarke, Original Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-01-24 15:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1610624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainGrammar/pseuds/CaptainGrammar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should've been a cake-walk of an off-world research mission: take the nerds off-base, let them do their thing, bring everyone home in one piece.<br/>Except when was anything ever that simple out in the Pegasus?<br/>Things don't go as they should. Old, known enemies have taken on new and interesting characteristics and leave the Atlantis team woefully outnumbered and with more questions in the air than they have answers for...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

_Auralie Clarke_

  


It's a bright and relatively chilly morning for mid-April. The skies are clear with minimal cloud cover, the wind is blowing a gentle breeze, carrying the gentle trilling of birdsong with it and, as is typical for a group of anthropologists and scientists out in the field collating all kinds of data and evidence before deciding if the location is worth further inspection, we've broken into groups and started methodically photographing and documenting our surroundings and taking samples.

Except this isn't your typical field. In fact, if we're being pedantic, it isn't even a field. It's the remnants of a small settlement from a civilization that has long since abandoned the area built on and around what could, to the untrained eye, be some kind of ruined monastery or cathedral. A dark, blue-tinted forest, thick with freezing mist from the early hour stands in dark and formidable sentry of the ruins. On closer inspection, the tall and imposing almost marble-esque, glittering architecture, overgrown with climbing plants and moss are heavy duty stonework with a little metal thrown in for flare. The encroaching flora would be almost unrecognisable to most botanists on earth and the markings left over are in languages Indiana Jones would struggle to make sense of.

A close look at any of this and the scene would be utterly alien to anybody living on earth. Alien, in fact, to anybody in the entire Milky Way system. I've also never, in my short but varied career, had a handful of lightly-armed Marines hovering on the perimeter, keeping a watchful eye on us like we're a bunch of Fourth-graders which (I think you'll agree for any situation involving reference books and a gathering of nerds more au fait with Eric Wolf or Einstein than with AK-47s) is a bit much.

But this is all atypical and possibly mundane to those of us who have been out in the Pegasus galaxy for longer than two months. The fact that we travelled by wormhole to get to our site is still a novelty. Beats a 12 hour flight from LaGuardia to Cairo, that's for sure. Though I don't get to leave the Atlantis base as much as I'd like, sitting in anartefact-laden lab on a strange new world, light years from home, studying and learning about dead languages and ancient rituals from cultures I could never have imagined is still a million times more exciting than doing exactly the same thing from a poke-y little office on Columbia's campus in the depths of New York City. Location, location, location...

A sentiment shared by many of the team with me now. Professor Horowitz, head of our department, tenured from Brown (many moons ago if the grey in his beard is anything to go by), breaks off from the small group to my rear and approaches, his grey blue eyes sparkling with boyish excitement. “Did you see the engravings on the pillar there? It's a kind of Latin mixed with Old English I've never seen before!”

I smile at the 60-year-old man-child practically bouncing in front of me. “Steady now, Bill. You're drooling.”

“Did you bring those photos from M6H-652? The whole architectural structure looks remarkably similar, we might be on to the same sort of thing here.”

I sigh and rifle through my book-heavy pack. I never did work out how to travel light.

“Come on, Dr. Clarke. Get excited.”

“I think I'd be a little happier if I didn't feel like we were being baby-sat,” I snark, handing over a sheaf of photos, eye-balling our military contingent with mild contempt.

“They're just here as routine protection, Auralie,” Horowitz reminds me gently, taking the documents. “Don't get agitated.”

“What do we need protecting from though? This place is uninhabited.”

“ _Appears_ to be uninhabited, Clarke. Something drove the natives from their homes and we're here to find out what that was.”

“You're right,” I say, deciding to take the high road. “We're here to do a job and they're here to do theirs, no matter how unhappy they look doing it.”

“Clarke...?”

“Right. Sorry. Playing nicely.”

“You know, you'd be a little less stressed if you had a man in your life...” Bill goads, deliberately trying to rile me up.

“And with one statement, you just set feminism back twenty years.” I throw back, unthinkingly, playing right into his hands.

He chuckles, content to have gotten a rise from me. He's so like my dad. Horowitz beckons me and I reluctantly follow him to the group consisting of other colleaguesof mine from the Anthropology department, Dr Wakely and two scientists whose names I didn't quite catch before heading out this morning who seem to be excited about something. Bless them.

“Did we miss something, fellas?” Bill begins, jovially.

“Potentially,” says one of the scientists. Calvin Something. Damn. I must pay more attention to names. “There's an energy reading about half a kilometer from here which might be worth looking into.”

“Sounds interesting,” Horowitz agrees, nodding. “Are we heading off, seeing what's being powered?”

“I think that depends on our entourage,” says scientist number two as the Armed Contingent, who seem to have a sixth sense for any kind of ruckus, walk towards us. I stifle a giggle, glad the resentment seems to be a theme between us.

“Got something good?” Asks one of the Marines, a fresh-faced Lieutenant, placating us with what is obviously false enthusiasm.

“Energy readings, 500 meters east of here,” says Calvin Scientist.

The Lieutenant throws a baffled look to a taller guy with dark, messy hair, clearly the superior officer here if the all black uniform is anything to go by.

“Energy field good,” he clarifies with a faint, unidentifiable but unequivocally southern drawl.

“Well maybe less good but certainly worth looking into, Colonel.” Scientist Number Two interjects.

“Might be the power source for whatever stood here before,” Wakely continues.

“Which is subtle, science-speak for 'let's go check it out',” the Colonel concludes, which I have to assume must be his way of giving us the green light.

“Well wait, we don't all need to go.” Horowitz chimes in as the rest of the team makes to leave. “Dr Clarke, why don't you stay here, get some photos, take some notes?”

“On my own?” I ask, throwing Bill a beseeching look that goes completely ignored.

“You won't be on your own. Col. Sheppard will keep you company, won't you?”

Ah. This is the infamous Colonel John Sheppard. I'm almost disappointed. From what I'd heard from Jennifer whenever she and Rodney had been talking about him, I always assumed he'd be some kind of raven-haired lothario. This guy just seems normal. Average.

I find my voice to interject. “But...”

“If that makes more sense to you, sure.” Sheppard cuts across me. “Okay then. Lieutenant Bridges, Captain Jackman, you're up. Keep in radio contact. If I don't hear from you guys in an hour, I'm coming after you.”

Wakely pat me sympathetically on the shoulder before grinning almost conspiratorially at Horowitz. They're so doing this just to piss me off. I can't do one-on-one with someone I have nothing in common with and they know this. Nice one, guys.

My arguments tailing into nothing, Col. Sheppard and I watch as the rest of the team heads off, the scientists happily chattering away, Horowitz and Wakely a little way behind, Jackman to the front and Bridges to the rear and continue watching until their voices fade and we're left alone. I turn and smile at the Colonel awkwardly before diving into my pack for a reference book full of my haphazard, scrawled notes whilst he perches on one of the remnants of a stone column in front of me, placing a dangerous-looking gun to the side of him.

“So what's M6H-652?” He asks after a moment or two of uncomfortable silence. His tone takes me by surprise. He actually overheard our conversation and actually seems legitimately interested.

“It was an Ancient research facility that Mj. Lorne and his team came across a couple months ago,” I reply, deciding to humour him, more than happy to fill the awkward void. “It looked very similar to this only it was actually slightly more... Well, it looked like it had been blown up or fired at from something huge. There was very little of it left.”

Silence falls again. I continue. “So if we can find out from this site what the facility was for, we can work out why they were destroyed and who destroyed them.”

Sheppard nods in understanding, his eyes drifting away from me and back into the direction of where the team wandered off.

“So, this seems a little sedate for you...” I begin in a second attempt to try and build bridges.

“What do you mean?” Sheppard asks, a little blind-sided.

“I've heard stories,” I say. “You and your team have something of a reputation of finding trouble every time you head off-world.”

“Well, it's always nice to have a reputation.” He comments with blithe sarcasm.

“This just seems a little... I dunno, boring for you.”

He folds his arms. “Bridges and Jackman don't get many chances to cut their teeth on off-world ops,” he says. “I agreed to let them go with you guys on this so long as they had someone with a little more experience to keep an eye on them.”

“So you're babysitting the babysitters?” I quip.

He grins, almost reluctantly. “Something like that. I just want to make sure they know what they're doing and don't get into trouble.”

“Which is why you let them wander into the woods by themselves?” I mock.

“Please, there's nothing around here. What's gonna happen to them?”

Just then, as if by some kind of weird, karmic move brought about by those infamous last words, we here shouting, cries and a sound I've never heard outside of an action movie.

Gunfire.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_John Sheppard_

 

 

 

_Gunfire breaks the air, sending birds flying and catching myself and Dr. Clarke completely off guard. We both turn to our left, where the shots are echoing from._

_Where Bridges, Jackman and the science team had gone._

_Famous last words and all that._

_Adrenaline kicks in and I snap into action._

_“Stay here,” I bark at Clarke, grabbing my P-90 off the rock beside me and taking off at a sprint down the wooded path, hearing agonising cries and several more rounds of gun fire meters ahead of me. A clearing looms ahead of me and I break into it. What greets me is a scene I wasn't prepared for._

_Bridges is lying disarmed and strangely still, head at a strange angle where his neck has obviously been broken. The two scientists are lying in a pool of blood, dead on the ground, two feet behind Bridges. He'd clearly died saving them. The same fate has met the anthropologists. Jackman is standing just feet away from the assailant – a Wraith with Bridges' P-90 aimed at Jackman who is firing shots into him from his sidearm, his own P-90 must've been knocked away in the fray. But something's not right. This Wraith is taking the hits like nothing I've ever seen before._

_Their skirmish ends too quickly and in two accurate body blows. Too late for me to save Jackman. Not late enough for me to find a way to end the Wraith._

_I raise and aim my gun, firing bullet after bullet into his chest and arm s . He drops the gun, staggers slightly but does not go down. Frowning, co nfused , I knock things up a gear and go for a couple o r three head shots. Finally, almost reluctantly, the Wraith breathes his last and falls to the ground in an inelegant heap ._

_I stand on the sidelines of the death scene, steeling myself as silence falls, feeling that odd sense of emotional disassociation settling over me. Seven dead. Seven. On what was supposed to be a research trip. This crap doesn't get any easier to handle._

_I hear quick, light footsteps behind me and Clarke gambols out, tripping through the undergrowth._

_“Colonel Sheppard, wh-” The words dam in her mouth. Her eyes widen at the sight of her colleagues, her friends, dead on the ground. “Oh God...”_

_She lurches to the side, collapses to her knees and with zero warning begins retching as shock hits her like a tonne of bricks. I've seen it happen before to new recruits and people unfamiliar with the brutality of combat._

_This is exactly why I wanted her to stay put._

_But an anthropologist ignoring an order of mine isn't my main concern right now. With no idea what else might be lurking out here, Dr. Clarke's safety and my own is the priority. It's too late for the rest of the team but I'll be damned if I lose anybody else today. I walk to the tree line and find Clarke holding her long, blondish-red hair back, dry heaving and shaking like a leaf._

_“I'm sorry,” she says in a small, trembling voice before she gets to her feet, unsteady. I grab her arm and hold her up whilst she regains her composure, taking a few deep breaths._

_“Don't worry,” I reply, knowing that's little comfort right now. “The first time I saw a man shot dead, I hurled for a good twenty minutes.”_

_“Oh God, they are dead then, aren't they? Of course they are. How can they not be?” She babbles despairingly as I guide her through the mess of bodies._

_“Yeah. They're dead.” There's no way to sugar coat it._

_“Oh God,” she whimpers._

_“But you're not, okay? And neither am I. And I don't plan on letting that change any time soon.”_

_“I'm glad to hear that.”_

_“Good. Just stay close.”_

_She nods in affirmation. We head out with no argument from Clarke and back into the killing field. I stand for a moment, knowing I have to collect the tags from Bridges and Jackman. Detaching myself from the situation, I snap the tags from their bodies, surveying the bloodshed, having a quiet moment of remembrance for them all. I look back at the Wraith, collapsed on the floor, head completely blown to pieces but I can only count maybe eight or nine bullet wounds on his torso, even though blood is staining almost every inch of his ugly armour and I remember piling more metal into him than is showing._

_“Something's not right,” I whisper, frowning at the carnage before me._

_“Of course something's not right!” Clarke hisses hysterically from behind me, visibly agitated and upset at having to be so close to death. “A Wraith just killed two of your men, a couple of scientists and two of my friends!”_

_“But they didn't feed. Why didn't they feed?”_

_“They did shoot though, didn't you notice that?!”_

_“They shot to kill. Wraith never shoot to kill if they can help it.”_

_I turn to Clarke who, valiantly and to her credit, puts her hysteria to one side.“Aren't they also supposed to be pretty easy to kill if they haven't fed in a while?”_

_“Those guys definitely took a lot of fire.” I note. Stepping through the mess and to one of the scientists' corpses, I reach down and pick the life-signs detector from his hand. Aside from myself and Dr. Clarke, there are 8 other bio-signs showing up in the forest around us, thankfully unaware of our position. I'd like to keep it that way. I don't even want to think about how many others might be lurking elsewhere._

_The energy signal is pulsing on the device in my hand, indicating towards the structure that's looming out from the mist on the other side of the body-strewn clearing. The structure where, presumably, the group had entered, following the energy reading and had begun to assess what was inside. We need to get out of here, there's no doubt about it but there are some questions that need answering first. I turn to Clarke, take her gently by her shoulders_

_“Listen, I know this is a lot to take in and this isn't something you're used to but I need for you to do as I say and trust me right now, okay?” I say quickly, looking her straight in the eye. “You need to keep as calm as possible, hold it together and help me work this out, can you do that?”_

_I've never seen a more terrified face in all my life. She surveys the scene and then nods slowly. “I can. I think.”_

_“Good enough for me. Now come on.” Cautiously, keeping Clarke behind me, we breach the mouth of what seems like a tunnel or corridor. The building is obviously Ancient in design but either age or neglect has taken a toll because it feels different. Not light an airy but dark, oppressive, an almost familiar red tinge taking hold in the darkness that I can't quite place._

_We continue down the closed-in corridor in silence, our footfalls echoing around the hall for what feels like forever before taking the only left offered to us and entering into what I can only assume is the nerve center of this particular establishment. Sure enough, amongst the ruin, weeds and trees that have taken a stranglehold on the entire building, a Zero-Point module glows dimly into the darkness of a cavernous lab of some kind that looks similar to some we have on Atlantis. Vaulted ceiling, vast floor space but clearly built with a utilitarian function in mind. There are no other rooms adjacent and there's only one other tunnel, almost completely obstructed by some kind of cave in, just opposite the entryway we came in through. But the ZPM isn't he only thing casting light into the gloom. To the rear of the room full of long abandoned equipment is something that we'd never find within a hundred miles of Atlantis if we can help it._

_Wraith hibernation pods. At least a dozen of them, all empty and throwing an eerie, orange-y gold hue into the dusky room except for one._

_“I guess not everyone heard the wake up call.” I say, walking along the row of pods, double checking the one left standing isn't going to be a problem._

_Clarke slowly walks over and stands beside me, her face ashen and disbelieving._

_“Well I think we've established what drove the locals out,” she says without a trace of humour or irony._

_This really throws up more questions than it answers. We know where the Wraith came from but what were they doing here in the first place? Why take over an abandoned Ancient outpost and cannibalise the locality? Why then abandon it themselves and leave some of their own in stasis? And why, when fired on, did that bastard take it so well?_

_To be honest, I'm not keen on sticking around to find out._

_This was supposed to be a cake-walk. Look after the team, make sure two of my newer and younger recruits don't mess things up, head home, enjoy the rest of what should have been a day off and sleep. Job done. Now I'm looking at a death toll of six of my own people and one near-steroidal Wraith and an unfamiliar planet crawling with about twenty more of them._

_It seems a quiet life is not something I'm ever destined for._

_“What do we do now?” Clarke says after a lengthy silence._

_“There's nothing more we can do here.” I sigh, being realistic. “I say we head back to the Gate, dial home and get the hell out of here.”_

_“But what about Wakely and Horowitz? Those two marines...”_

_I catch a look at her face. She's so attached and involved, on the verge of breaking down._

_“We'll find a way to bring them back but we can't do that by ourselves right now,” I say firmly._

_“So we've got to head out there with more of those things?”_

_“The Gate's not that far,” I say, partly lying. It's probably not that far if you run but I need to keep her calm. “And we can keep track of where they are with this thing.”_

_I wave the life-signs detector briefly. Dr. Clarke looks hesitant but ready to go. I don't blame her._

_We traipse back out of the lab, through the darkened tunnel and out into the open. Keeping an eye firmly on the bio-signs as their pulsating lights appear to be fanning out into the forest to the rear of our path back to the Gate, we set off and a quick pace. Clarke's lagging behind me slightly even though I'm going half the pace I normally would. She's not speaking, even though she, like me, must have a million things running through her mind. Sometimes shock gets you in weird ways and it must be causing her to completely retreat into herself. Shock doesn't get me any more. All I get is that adrenal kick in the pit of my stomach and a heightened sense of what needs doing which I'm thankful for right now._

_After a good ten to fifteen minutes, the welcoming arch of the Stargate looms into view._

_“That was easy,” Clarke says, panting slightly, walking past me and towards the DHD. I watch her back, making sure none of our new friends have any plans to try and stop us leaving._

_“A little too easy,” I note, raising my P-90 defensively, scanning our surroundings. It's oddly quiet. Why are none of the Wraith here, trying to dial out themselves? Why aren't they here stopping any other potential enemies from getting home?_

_Absolutely nothing about the events of the last hour or so are feeling right to me ._

_Clarke slows, approaching the dialling device before stopping, her shoulders sloping in defeat. She's not dialling out._

_“What's the hold up?” I call across._

_“I think we've been beaten to it...” Clarke replies._

_Furrowing my brow, I jog to the DHD only to find the entire thing has been blown to pieces. Scorched metalwork frames open circuitry and many of the control crystals have been damaged from what I can only assume must've been from Wraith blasters._

_Nobody's getting off this planet any time soon._

 


	3. Chapter 3

_Auralie Clarke_

 

 

I find myself staring in an almost dreamlike state at the ruined DHD. I know this means we're potentially screwed but it's not really hitting me. Nothing seems to be. My mind is still stuck back in that clearing on Horowitz and Wakely's lifeless bodies. Two of the closest things I had to friends in the department are dead. The shock from that had me hurling the bushes but this? My brain can't seem to comprehend the gravity of our situation so it's choosing not to.

I look across to Sheppard who looks back at me with an equally confounded expression.

“Why the hell would the Wraith destroy their only means of getting off the planet?” I ask. I've had precisely zero first hand dealings with the Wraith, I have no idea what's happening. “They've been in hibernation for God knows how long, why don't they want to leave?”

“I have no idea. These Wraith... There's something not right about them. They're not acting like and Wraith I've ever come across before,” Sheppard says, only slightly concerned. Either that or he's freaking the hell out and trying to keep a calm front up. An admirable trait. I wouldn't be able to.

“So maybe they know we're here.” I say, forcing the cogs of my brain to start turning, albeit slowly. “They have that weird, psychic link, right? Maybe they know we're still here and they're hunting us down.”

“But why waste time and energy hunting two humans? You'd either Gate to a Wraith stronghold or another planet with more people to feed on. And they're not doing that.”

Although we've answered what they're doing, the why is clearly still open for much debate.

“When did we say we'd check back in with Atlantis?” Sheppard asks.

“At three this afternoon,” I say.

Sheppard glances down at his watch. “Okay, so we've got four hours before they'll dial in themselves and find out what's going on.”

“So what do you propose we do until then?” I ask, hesitantly.

“Work out what the hell's going on here and try and stay alive,” Sheppard states, so matter-of-factly a new wave of terror washes over me. Try to stay alive. I'd always taken that as a given every time I've stepped through the Stargate. Hell, even stepping out of my own front door at home. But this is new. This is a very real case of facing mortality and surviving. I know I'm carrying a lot of stuff in my pack right now but I don't know how well-equipped I am to be doing that today.

“Would it be worth heading back to that lab?” I hedge, timidly.

“What're you thinking?”

“Well, we could at least work out how those Wraith got out of their hibernation pods.” I say. “There might even be some kind of record as to how they came to be there in the first place.”

“And we'd be out of the open,” Sheppard agrees. I nod, attempting to put on a brave face. “Okay. We'll head back.”

And so we tread the path we just came along, retracing our steps. We're going at a slower pace this time, carefully meandering our way through scrub and the odd tree. For what feels like an age, the only sound that either of us can hear with any sort of clarity is the gentle beeping of the lifesigns detector but the wildlife soon begins to drown that out the further into the wilderness and back towards to lab we get. Birds begin chirping, an oxymoron for the state of things at the moment.

I don't like the silence between myself and Colonel Sheppard right now, though. Here's a man who's doing his damnedest to keep us both alive and we're not saying a word. I need a distraction. I need to not think too much about things. Taking advantage of the fact that all signs point to us being alone and relatively safe for the time being, I try and start a conversation.

“I'm sorry this isn't the kind of mission you were expecting,” I say, apologetically.

“It's not your fault,” he replies, eyes ahead and on the road.

“Well if we hadn't suggested poking around...”

“Listen, Dr Clarke...”

“Auralie. Please.” I interrupt, briefly. “Dr. Clarke makes me sound like I'm back in the classroom or something.”

“Alright, Auralie... You'd be awful explorers, scientists and anthropologists if you didn't poke around once in a while. You were just doing your job, don't beat yourself up over it.”

“I guess. And I suppose we wouldn't be the first people to accidentally wake up an alien enemy.”

I cast a pointed look across to the Colonel who, for all the seriousness of our current predicament, manages a small grin. “Welcome to the club, Clarke.”

I smile myself, glad that the ice has finally broken a little, leaving the following silence feeling a little less awkward.

“You know that us heading back up to that lab means going back to... Y'know...” Sheppard trails off, casting a sidelong look at me, slightly concerned. I know what he means – going back amongst the bodies. “You gonna be okay with that.”

The honest answer is no. Not really. Not at all. “Horowitz was a good friend of mine,” I say, the past participle hitting me like a bulldozer. _Was_. “I owe it to him and Wakely to give them some answers, get to the bottom of things.”

“You didn't answer my question.”

He's right. I didn't. But I don't want him to be worrying too much about me when he's already got enough to be concerned about. “I'll try not to throw up this time, if that helps.”

Col. Sheppard shakes his head slightly, knowing I'm evading the question. Probably knowing I'm really not okay with this but he doesn't push the matter. Instead we push on, the scrub thinning as we approach the clearing once more.

I try not to look at the ground. I'm already feeling an intense and overwhelming sense of sadness just being here but if I see the faces of the people who lost their lives an hour or so ago, I'm going to lose it. Instead I let Sheppard take the lead, following him through the bodies, focussing on the back of his head, blinking back the tears.

Soon enough, we're back inside the small complex and I become aware of the fact that I'd been holding my breath as we approached. I exhale loudly, throwing my rucksack from off my back and fall against the cold wall of the tunnel, feeling the metal against my back as it holds me upright, nausea threatening to overwhelm me again. Sheppard, a few paces ahead of me, turns back, throwing me a concerned look. I nod a little. “I'm okay.”

His eyes say 'bullshit'. His mouth says “come on, then.”

I steady myself and, pack slung over one shoulder, follow him back up the tunnel and into the adjoining lab. The Zero-Point Module is still glowing into the darkness of the spartan lab.  I'm suddenly aware of how chilly it is in here, with no windows to let in any natural light or warmth.

I watch as Sheppard approaches the hibernation pods, his gun poised in one hand, the other running along the framework. I take a quick glance over some of the consol e s to the side to see if anything might've been touched by any of the team in here earlier.  Strangely, although the vast majority of all the computers and mechanics in here are obviously of Ancient design, there are add-ons; Wraith consoles tapped onto existing wiring, haphazardly thrown on more for functionality than anything more sophisticated.  A thick layer of dust and sediment covers almost every inch of panelling in here, except one. The dust from one control desk has been brushed away – the controls closest to where the hibernation pods are. I glance across the floor and see rudimentary, almost organic-looking cab les running from the desk to the pods, then back out again towards to ZPM. A penny drops with a resounding clunk in the recesses of my brain.

“Don't touch anything!” I say sharply.

Sheppard turns around quickly. “What's wrong?”

“I don't know how they've managed it but somehow the Wraith have integrated their own technology with the Ancients'.” I say, pointing down to the ground. Sheppard's eyes follow the cables as he puts two and two together the same as I did.

“And Ancient tech reacts to anybody with the A.T gene,” he says, approaching me, glancing down at the dustless panel.

“Which I don't have but Horowitz does. Did.” I say, sombre at my self edit. “They must've come in here, not seen the pods, touched this and...”

I don't need to finish the sentence. We both know what happened next.

“Is there anything here that might have records? Databases...?” Sheppard's voice trails off. I'm not a scientist by any stretch but I can read Ancient and Wraith as well as the next person. I take a quick look over the panels, glancing across the wall looking for a screen. I stop, indicate to the controls in front of me.

“If there's any records, they'll be in there,” I say. “But I don't think...”

Before I can finish,  Sheppard leans across, touching the  controls which spring to life. The screen becomes aglow with faint bluish light as Alteran symbols scroll over the surface.

“I said 'don't touch'...”

“Anything that's gonna hurt us is already outside, ”Sheppard says. “Now what does this say?”

I sigh, despairing, but swallow it down. Now is not the time.  “A lot of it is science-y mumbo jumbo I have no hope of ever understanding,” I admit. “But it's a data log from an experiment of some kind...  Oh, God.”

“What?”

“Nanite. That word there,” I reach up to the screen. “Says 'nanite'.”

“Ah, crap, not those bastards again.” Sheppard whispers.

“This must've been a research outpost for when the Ancients started their work with nanite technology.” I say, paraphrasing the symbols as they marquee across the screen. I tap the controls in front of me and am taken to another page. “But this place was abandoned. They decided the preliminary results were so positive, they moved the research over to Atlantis.” I turn back over my shoulder to the Colonel. “The Wraith didn't kick them out, they left on their own. So what the hell were they doing here?”

“Maybe it was during the war. Establish an outpost, gain whatever intel and power you can...” Sheppard suggests.

“It's possible.”

“Okay, well you read some more, I'm gonna head outside, scout the area, see if there's anything else here we're missing.”

“So you're gonna leave me here?!” I say, suddenly petrified.

“I'm gonna be gone two seconds and right outside the door, Clarke.” Sheppard says, making for the door. “You're gonna be fine. Just learn what you can, okay?”

And he's out, leaving me alone with nothing more than the gentle hum of electronic whirring and his footsteps softly receding down the hall.

So I do as I'm told. I read more and more files, each containing information regarding bonds and responsiveness and coding which I'm sure would make a lot of sense to McKay or Keller were they here. It feels like no time at all as passed until I hear quick footsteps coming back up the hall. I turn around just as Col. Sheppard almost dramatically enters the room.

“We've got company.”

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

_John Sheppard_

 

 

 

 

_I step out of the facility and back into the sunshine. The sun's almost directly overhead now so it's definitely getting to the middle of the day. I glance down at my watch which reliably informs me we have another two hours and forty minutes to hold out until Atlantis dial in to check our progress. I take the lifesigns detector out of one of the pockets of my pants and take a quick scan of it. A few Wraith lifesigns are bleeping a little way from us which makes me a little nervous but they don't seem to be making for myself or Clarke as of yet._

_Taking advantage of the silence, I approach the body of Bridges and take his radio and extra ordinance . Even his side arm, just in case I need it and don't have a chance to reload. If we do run in to any more Wraith or if, for some crazy reason, Clarke and I become separated, I want to be prepared for that. I want for her to be prepared for that. Which, given her anxiety, might be asking a little too much._

_From nowhere the lifesigns detector starts bleeping more frequently and loudly._

_I sprint back up the co r ridor of the complex and burst through into the lab. Clarke turns quickly, eyes alive with fear._

_“We've got company,” I pant slightly, walking towards her._

_“How many?” She asks, visibly nervous._

_“Just two but I'd prefer if they didn't find us,” I say. “We can't stay in one place for too long.”_

_Clarke powers down the console and grabs her gear._

_“Okay, Clarke. We've gotta move.”_

_“You don't need to keep calling me Clarke, you know.” She says gently though I can feel her subtle annoyance._

_“Well 'Auralie' takes too long to say.” I reply, ushering her out of the lab and into the open_

_“It's French,” she clarifies, as though this should explain everything._

_“Let's argue about etymology later,” I snip, putting myself between the treeline to the far side of the clearing and her, keeping my gun poised and my eyes trained, ready should anything breach the cover._

_Thankfully, the brush to the rear of us is so dense we can duck in there for cover. I hazard a quick glance back to Clarke, indicate for her to move as quickly as she can back into it. I follow her into it just as the two Wraith I was anxious about break their own cover and start making their way into the field._

_As quietly as we can, Clarke and I creep a good twenty yards or so into the brush. Instinctively, she crouches behind a bush. I take up a position beside her, find a gap in the foliage and continue watching the pair of Wraith._

_I don't get it. These guys... They were fast. Too fast. To creep up from the depths of that woodland and to get to the edge of it as quickly as they did... Not normal. Neither's the way they're confusedly wandering around their fallen. It's like their wiring's gone screwy. They're not even going back into the lab to see if there are any orders left there for them. They've got no interest in it. Finally, after way too long for my comfort, they turn and go back the way they came, no doubt to meet up with the rest of their band._

_“Okay. That was weird.” I eventually say, cautiously getting to my feet, eyes still trained on the far side of the clearing._

_“'Weird'? Try 'terrifying'.” Clarke replies, scrambling up to her feet._

_“They've destroyed their only way off this rock. They're not interested in that lab.” I continue._

_“To be honest, that lab isn't exactly useful anyway. At least, not to us. I couldn't find any logs in there about what happened. Bring a science team back here and they could tell you the ins and outs of the experiment but for my field of work, there's nothing.” Clarke says, disheartened._

_“There's no way they didn't leave any kind of journal,” I say. “There's gotta be something.”_

_“You want to go back in? See if there's a record in the database?”_

_Ordinarily, I'd suggest that sticking in a shelter and waiting this out as a good idea. But this isn't an ordinary situation._

_“The way these Wraith are patrolling, staying in one place means we're easier to pin down.”I say._

_“I thought you said heading for cover would be a good idea,” Clarke whispers, hurriedly._

_I know she's not being a smart ass on purpose but we don't have time for it, intentional or not.“Things change. Right now, we've gotta keep moving. Be as difficult to pin down as possible.”_

_I see Clarke panic. “You want us to keep out in the open with those things?!” She whimpers._

_“I'm not suggesting making a scene and drawing them to us,” I say._

_“Really? No confetti cannons or party blowers?”_

_More sarcasm. I ignore it and pass Clarke the radio I just picked up. “Take this.”_

_“Why will I need this?” She asks, nervous._

_“In case we get separated.”_

_“Wait, you want us to split up?!” Clarke is on the verge of a freak out._

_“No. I'm not anticipating it. But it might happen and if – IF – it does, I'm just a button push away, okay?”_

_Clarke nods but she has a look on her face that reminds me of that kid from Jurassic Park when she spots those raptors coming through the visitor centre. Sheer, unadulterated terror._

_I also pass her the second side arm. “You better keep a hold of this, too. Just in case.”_

_Clarke looks from the gun and back up to me. She's so overwhelmed and I hate that she's been thrown into this but I don't have time to walk her through it._

_“It's a gun, Clarke. You point it and shoot.”_

_And with that, I begin to head into the brush. Clarke follows on behind, keeping close._

_“Colonel, I'm a book worm from New Jersey.” She hisses. “I'm not Lara Croft.”_

_I appreciate her comment but I didn't need any clarification on that point.“So? Your trigger finger still works, right?”_

_“Well, yes.”_

_“Good. That's all you need, really.”_

_“You want me to shoot at these Wraith?!” She wails._

_“Well I'd kind of prefer it if you didn't shoot at me, yeah.”_

_Okay. So that sounded a little more harsh than I meant. It's not her fault she doesn't know how to handle these situations._

_We walk, slowly and in silence for a long time. Clarke, hovering by my left elbow, is quiet. Contemplative. I know what she's thinking. What's going through her head. Her friends, colleagues. Every now and again, I can hear her sniff as she tries desperately to hide her tears. When we get back to Atlantis and the shock sets in, she'll probably cry it all out. This is all so overwhelming and I don't know what to do to make her feel any better about it or if I even can. So I try to distract her instead._

_“How long have you been out here, now?” I ask quietly._

_Clarke looks across to me, hastily wiping her eyes. “About three months. I came in with the last new wave on the Daedalus.”_

_“I'll bet this wasn't the kind of field work you were after?” I say._

_Clarke laughs a little. “No. Definitely not.”_

_“But better than being in a classroom?” I say._

_Clarke throws me a confused look, clearly not remembering her comment earlier._

_“Before... You said me calling you Dr. Clarke, it reminded you...” I babble, clumsily._

_“Oh, yes.” Clarke says. “I used to lecture at Columbia in New York.”_

_Wow. That's fairly impressive. “So this was a real move into left field.”_

_“Yeah. Well, I'd written a few papers in my free time about Egypt, going off some research I'd found that hinted at something other than gold being hidden in Giza... Turns out if you publish a paper on how you think slaves weren't alone in the building of the pyramids, you get widely discredited by your peers and apparently you get a call from the US military...”_

_Suddenly she stops and sways a little on the spot._

_“Are you okay?” I ask, stupidly. Clearly she's not._

_“Yeah. I just feel a little light-headed.”_

_It occurs to me that not everyone is as used to all this running around with little to no fuel in their tank like I am. And Clarke pretty much emptied her stomach there a while ago._

_I take out the life-signs detector and with no dots on the screen, decide here is as good as anywhere to sit her down._

_“It's just low blood sugar,” I tell her, helping her down onto a log. “Sit for a second.”_

_So she sits, shakily, removing her pack, carefully placing the pistol I gave her to her right and even though we've been through such a lot in such a short space of time, I realise that she's been clinging on to that gun for almost a half hour and for some reason, that fact tickles me. A moment of relief in a bleak mission. She searches through her for a bottle of water and, finding it, takes a few sips, steadies herself a little more, then searches through the pack again. I take a peek inside it. Books, folders, sheets of paper, a few bottles of water, Power Bars, a banana..._

_“Not a fan of travelling light, huh?” I comment._

_Clarke ignores the tone and unwraps a Power Bar, taking a small bite. “Today my life choices are vindicated.”_

_I can't argue with that._

_I let her take a few minutes, constantly looking around, straining my ears for the slightest movement but thankfully there's nothing. A few birds chirp in the distance. The wind rustles, moving unseen through the eaves of the leafy canopy above us. This place is almost beautiful. With one obvious, deadly setback, of course._

_“I'm sorry,” Clarke says, almost thoughtfully after a few painful moments of silence._

_I turn my attention back to her. “What?”_

_“I'm sorry you have to go through all this, dragging me around with you.”_

_She doesn't look sorry for herself. Not really. She looks like a woman painfully aware of her own inadequacies in this situation._

_“You got nothing to be sorry about,” I say, breezily._

_“I do. I'm slowing you down. I'm... I'm not cut out for this.”_

_I take a final look around us, making sure we've got at least a few moments for a pep talk before I take a seat next to her._

_“Clarke, you're an anthropologist. You don't need to know this stuff. That's not why you're here.”_

_“But I knew the deal when I was assigned to Atlantis. I knew there were risks.” She says, zipping her bag up, irritated. “I should've done something to prepare...”_

_A loud crack comes from somewhere behind us. I silence Clarke with my hand, raising it for her to quieten down but she stopped the second we heard movement._

_I slowly rise from the log and Clarke creeps down, keeping low. I tune my gaze through the dense forest, searching for any signs of movement. Sure enough, a lone Wraith is making his way through the thicket. Unarmed._

_I'm not even going to question why he's unarmed. I'm just going to take advantage of that fact and stop asking questions._

_I raise my P-90 and wait for him to get into a clearing large enough for me to get a clear shot without allowing him to be too close to us. Though if my experience earlier on was anything to go by, a single shot's not gonna do it._

_Before the Wraith gets a chance to spot us, I fire a few rounds into his chest and a few more into his head for good measure. The second he falls to the floor, I yell at Clarke to run. That gunfire's going to have alerted the rest of them and I don't want to be here when they arrive._

_It doesn't look like staying outside is any safer than hiding out in that bunker and I'm running out of ideas._

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Auralie Clarke

 

 

 

 

_I_ can't keep track of what's going on any more and I can't stop to catch my breath. We try to wait it out and hide inside that lab and we're sitting ducks. We try to hide out in the expanse of woodland and again, we're easy bait. I don't know what to do. Colonel Sheppard doesn't seem to have a back up plan. And this massive loop we've run to get us out and away from any potential danger seems endless.  I don't know how long or how far we've been running but a clearing comes into view. A familiar clearing. A clearing that's probably going to haunt my nightmares.  The lab can't be more than twenty yards to our right but it may as well be twenty miles.

I slow down and lean against a tree on the outskirts of the forest, exhausted. Sick. There's a maelstrom of awfulness inside of me. Sheppard slows down too, having run ahead of me slightly, noticing me fall back.

“Yeah. We should stop for a second...” he says, panting a little but not nearly as much as me.

“Are we... Y'know, is there anything near us?” I gasp, wincing a little, feeling a stitch in my side.

Sheppard takes out the life-signs detector. “No. We're good for now.”

I can't stand. I slide down and onto the floor with absolutely no elegance.

“We can't keep doing this.” Sheppard says, looking around. “I am sick of this running and trying to keep ahead.”

“I know what you mean.”

I feel my heart rate returning to normal. Sheppard looks at his watch.

“Okay. We've got about an hour to go until Atlantis will most likely dial up and check in.” He says.

“We have to hold out for another hour?” I say, leaning back against the tree, closing my eyes.

“No. We're not just gonna 'hold out'. I'm done with 'holding out'.” Sheppar says with such vehemence, it's a little intimidating.

“So what do you suggest we do?” I ask.

“We're going to head back to that lab and you're going to look for anything useful.”

He strides over to me and helps me to my feet.

“We already tried that,” I say, scrambling up. “There's nothing there.”

“Well you're just going to have to look a little harder.

There's a forcefulness behind him that I don't want to mess with. I have no choice but to follow him back into the lab. Back down the path, through the cold and darkness.

“I'm sorry. Okay? I'm not good with pressure and life and death like you are.” I say, close to tears.

“No. You're not. What you are good at is cultures and languages.” Sheppard says, firmly. “Which is why I need you to take a look through these computers and see if there's something – anything in here – that could be useful in some way.”

I want to give up. I want to cave. But he looks at me with such resolute faith that I steel myself as much as I can, fire up the work station and take a look.

What I'm looking for is something in Wraith, which means I can discount all the endless Alteran symbols. I scroll as quickly as I can through  log after log after log.

Sheppard keeps an eye out, hovering by the doorway, occasionally wandering out in the hallway.

He wanders back in whilst I'm in the middle of trawling through files.

“I don't know where else that corridor lead to but there's another way out into the open if you keep on walking...” he says.

“Why didn't we notice that before?” I say distractedly, still flicking through the files.

“There's a massive cave in covering it.”

“Ah.”

“That and we weren't exactly looking for it.” Sheppard says, looking over my shoulder. “Speaking of which...”

After what feels like endless clicking and scrolling through files, a word comes up that catches my eye.  _**Error** _ . Or maybe  _**mistake** _ . Wraith semantics are difficult to fathom sometimes and now isn't the moment to be pedantic.

“Colonel? I've got something here.”

Sheppard clicks into alert mode with impressive speed. “What is it?”

I read a few more words.  _**Nanite. Attack. Destroy** _ **.** But there's no battle context.

“It's what we've been looking for! This is the log about what happened here!”

“Please tell me there's something helpful in there about our friends outside,” Sheppard pleads.

I nod in affirmation, scanning through the symbols as quickly as I possibly can, fear and adrenaline speeding my comprehension skills markedly.

“It seems the Ancients weren't the only ones who liked to do a little experimenting with their physiology,” I say, eyes still flying over the text. “From what I can make out, it looks like there was a small band of Wraith scientists who thought they could take the Ancients nanite technology and use it to their own advantage.”

“I take it the plan didn't go so well.”

I shake my head. “From what I can make out, it seems their scientists thought they could use the nanites to double team their own evolved method of healing to make them double efficient. Kind of like super soldiers, almost impossible to kill. Which, given as they were fighting a war and would possibly be unable to feed for large amounts of time, would have been a help. Get hurt, get healed by the nanites, carry on.”

“Great, that's just what I like to hear.” Sheppard intones, heavy with sarcasm.

“Only it didn't work. They coded it wrong.” I continue. “The procedure only worked for a short amount of time. Then nanites went after the Iratus bug DNA, considering that an alien body because it wasn't human, like they were programmed to recognise. They considered it a pathogen or something and destroyed it, killing them slowly in the process. They didn't notice the problem until it was too late. By then a vast number of Wraith had already been given a dose of the badly coded nanites.”

“So how come we've still got 20 of those guys kicking about that won't die?” Sheppard asks, following a few paces behind me.

I click around some more and bring up another, later entry. “Hibernation. They were put into hibernation until the problem could be fixed.”

“Which it never was.” Sheppard concludes.

“Exactly. The Wraith were in the middle of a war so of course these guys were forgotten about. With the body in stasis, the nanites had nothing to work on so presumably just went into standby mode or something.”

“And the second you and your scientist friends back there came and started poking about in here...”

“We woke them up.” I finish.

We stare at each other for a second, wordless. Eventually I turn back to the screen, confused.

“I don't get it. Why make that log so impossible to find? I mean, I'm fairly sure I only came across it by some sort of miracle.”

“If you made a mess of something like that, would you want people to find out what you did?”

“Yeah. If someone came across it, I'd want someone to know what happened before they made the same mistake I did.”

“Wraith don't think like that,” Sheppard says. “They have this habit of destroying their problems instead.”

I probably should've figured that. The Wraith tend not to fix their annoyances. They eradicate them.

“So the ruins out by the Gate aren't from a native civilization at all. They're a part of the Ancient outpost that was here before the Wraith took it over.” I say.

Well. At least that's one mystery solved.

“So what do we do?” I begin tentatively after a second or two. “Wait for Atlantis to realise we're overdue and send help?”

“I'm not worried about them sending help, I'm worried about what the Wraith'll do when the help arrives.”

“What do you mean.”  
“C'mon, the DHD is shot to hell. These Wraith can't exactly go out for dinner and we can't warn Atlantis about the fact that we've got an enemy running around here hopped up on steroids that'll kill any help they do send the second it comes through the Gate. We've got to take them out before that.”

“Well we can't wait for the nanites to run out of juice, that could take days. Weeks. And you can't take them on by yourself.”

“I know but I'm sick and tired of running from these things.”

I look around the room, expecting it to throw some answers my way. But there's nothing here. Just some worn out panels and work stations and a ZPM...

Wait. Wait a second.

I feel Sheppard's eyes burning into me, watching me as the germ of an idea finds root in my brain.

“What're you thinking, Clarke?” He asks.

“The ZPM.” I mumble.

“What about it?”

“The Wraith... They tried to blow this place up. Destroy the evidence.” I say.

Sheppard looks from me to the ZPM and catches up. “You want to blow the ZPM?”

I nod, approaching the power unit. “Exactly. D'you know how to rig an overload?”

Sheppard looks at me almost scathingly. “No. But I know how to rig some C4.”

That sounds even better.

“Just one problem,” I say, the elation of our discovery and plan vanishing in an instant as I watch the Colonel approach the ZPM, whip a small, rectangular block from his vest before attaching a small, disc-like add-on I can only assume is some sort of detonation device to it. “How are we going to get all the Wraith in here to blow them up?”

Sheppard catches my eye. I spot a dangerous, determined glint.

“What?” I ask, feeling worn.

He reaches into his vest once more and I'm suddenly put in mind of Mary Poppins. And I thought I carried a lot of crap around with me. Though his crap is probably more necessary than mine. He produces something that looks like a cross between a radio and a grenade.

He's given me the remote detonation trigger.

“Just keep a hold of this and wait for me to come back.” He says.

“Why? Where are you going?”

“I'm gonna get out the confetti canons and party blowers.”

 


End file.
